The other day I was at a wake (of all places), and my mother and her distant cousin were talking about my mom's vacation with my dad, for which she was leaving the following morning. My dad was packed, as he smugly told them and me, and my mom wasn't ready to leave yet because she takes foreevverrr to pack, as he smugly and grumpily started snarking on her for. My mom and her cousin were like, "Well I'm sorry but it's just you don't know if it will be hot or cold and where you'll go for dinner and so you need to bring lots of clothes so you can have choices" blah blah blah.

I got on my feminist soapbox and was like, "Don't apologize for yourselves. Women are judged based on what they wear in a way that men aren't. Women have to adjust their clothing for slight differences in the atmosphere of restaurants and locations, men have basically 3-4 options and don't have to worry about being judged for their clothes and appearances the way women do, so please don't apologize for this because it isn't you fault, and dad you need to shut up because it's not them as much as the world they live in." My mom, who hates that I'm a feminist, and her cousin were basically looking at me like, "...yeah. Yeah!"

So I've found that the best way to talk about feminism is to talk about what it means to be a woman, especially for women who are hostile to the concept of feminism—my mom, for instance, is vehemently anti-abortion, so feminism means baby-killing to her. This isn't the first time I've done stuff like this with her—talking about how she is more frustrated than my dad because her options are more limited than his, she was always expected to be a 100% mother and 100% worker, when that was impossible, and how she is judged by the way her house looks in a way my dad isn't—hell, she's judged on the way my father looks in a way that he isn't. I know my mother frequently feels like she's going crazy, and is sad, and is frustrated, because of her gender. But she can't express or acknowledge that right now. So trying to accept her for who she is, trying to allow her to recognize that her frustrations aren't her own personal problem but are understandable, is a good way to be a feminist.

Another version of this is telling women that they are not crazy when they say that they are crazy, like "I know it's crazy to expect my boyfriend to call me when he decides not to come over instead of just not showing up, and I don't want to be the crazy girlfriend who needs him to call me all the time, but it's so sad when I get all ready and he doesn't show." Or something. I try to say things like, "That's not crazy, you just want him to respect you. I hate this bullshit "crazy woman" narrative in which all emotions, especially women's emotions, are called crazy, which just delegitimizes women's feelings and thoughts." That response has also led me to be the secret keeper for lots of women, like "I have to tell you a secret about the time(s) I was raped." Women are so frequently dismissed that refusing to dismiss them is a radical feminist act.

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